PRESS RELEASE from Birmingham University and College Union - Tuesday 26th June 2007 - For immediate release
Commission for Racial Equality censures University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is now the first university in England to be reported to the Department for Education for failing in its legal Race Equality Duty. Last week the Birmingham University branch of the University and College Union received a copy of a letter to the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Michael Sterling, from the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE). The letter states that the University has failed to show it has met its legal Race Equality Duty and that it has failed to respond to previous letters from the CRE. Six pages of damning criticism detail the failures of the University Senior Management to meet their legal duty to promote race equality.
Vice Chancellor "running out of time" to comply
The Vice Chancellor was given a 21-day ultimatum to meet a series of demands, or further action may follow from the CRE. He must now:
* agree to revise the University's Race Equality Policy and Action Plan and give details of how the University will meet the CRE's requirements;
* disclose the CRE's criticisms to the University's supreme body, the Council, which meets on July 4th;
* agree a compact with the UCU over proposed course closures.
The letter is dated June 6th, but as yet the University has failed to approach the UCU to begin discussions that could lead to a compact. Dr. William Edmondson, Vice-President of BUCU, said "The University now has only a few days left to comply with the CRE letter. They are running out of time."
"Institutional racism" in targeting black academics for redundancy
Last November the UCU accused the University of Birmingham of "institutional racism" for disproportionately targeting ethnic minority academic members of staff in the School of Education for redundancy. The University decided to withdraw from long-established courses in Community, Play and Youth work (CPY), claiming that they no longer fit with the strategy of the University. The UCU pointed out that this move threatened the jobs of 5 out of only 7 ethnic minority academic staff in the School of Education. The University failed to meet its legal obligations for genuine consultation and failed to consider fully the potential impact of the course closures on race equality issues. The UCU complaint to the Commission for Racial Equality over the CPY closure plans led to the current threat of legal enforcement action against the University. Last December, following a flood of complaints from supporters of the CPY courses, the Vice Chancellor assured local MPs that the University had acted within the law.
Peter Hick, UCU representative in the School of Education said today:
"Staff across the University and within the School of Education work hard to develop good practice in teaching and research around race and diversity issues. It is unacceptable that Senior Management should be so complacent about race equality issues that the Commission for Racial Equality has to inform the Minister at the Department for Education that the University is apparently failing in its legal Race Equality Duty. The Vice Chancellor owes an apology to staff in Community, Play and Youth Work for the shabby way they have been treated.
"The University is currently going through a major reorganisation, and this presents an ideal opportunity for a step change in the way it deals with race relations issues. Birmingham is shortly to become one of Britain's first major cities with a majority non-white school-age population. The University of Birmingham should be working towards best practice in race equality, instead of having to be dragged reluctantly into the 21st century."
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Is this university one more candidate for the 'Divestors of People' award/standard?
June 26, 2007
Identifying the work place psychopath
One of the anachronisms of the 21st century is that although we pride ourselves on our modern institutions, in many Australian workplaces the Dickensian bully still strides the corridors of power.
Workplace bullies are not an isolated phenomenon. When John Howard’s WorkChoices legislation was introduced into parliament in 2005, the Prime Minister suggested there was one in every office.
“If you’re living in a small business environment, you’ve got, say, five or eight people in an office or a workshop, and one of them is a pain in the neck and is making life difficult for everybody else, it’s workers in many cases more than the boss that would like to see the back of him,” Prime Minister Howard said.
This article goes further than the “pain in the neck" definition of the workplace bully. It examines the bully as psychopath with their extraordinary ability to adapt to change. It is an irony that the complex psychological profiles of these individuals share many of the traits of the corporate “go-getters“ who the media glorifies.
There have been many typologies of the workplace psychopath but most include these features:
* authoritative, aggressive and dominating;
* fearless and shameless;
* devoid of empathy or remorse;
* manipulative and deceptive;
* impulsive, chaotic or stimulus seeking; and
* a master of imitation and mimicry.
One key criterion that needs to be included in any typology is that they lack self knowledge. In short, and to paraphrase the Bible, “they know not what they do". This doesn’t mean that they are ignorant. Far from it. Their actions are often highly adaptive, self serving and intelligent. For them, the means justify the ends and those means include isolation, humiliation and psychological torture of their staff.
I am not suggesting that these work place "aliens" are a new species. I am suggesting that they are coming in to their own as our public and private institutions, both great and small, are buffeted by the new IR legislation.
The rise of casual or temporary work, the declining power of unions and a more deregulated workforce have helped create an environment where these individuals are less constrained by the demonstrated ethical behaviour of their more senior peers.
Many years ago I worked in an advertising agency that had appointed an accountant (Dr X) as the new managing director. In his previous job he had five staff and 10 clients. Now, working with us, he had 120 staff and 30 major clients. Still though, as any one who has worked in advertising knows, expect the unexpected. It’s a robust and competitive environment.
Dr X seemed like a nice bloke and his ideas on revamping the agency, while frowned upon by some of the creatives and the catering staff, made sense. Marketing needed a major boost and some of the staff thought (wrongly) that working in an advertising agency was one long lunch and putting in four-day weeks. Alas, no.
Dr X took six months before he made his first move. He terminated all of the catering staff (mainly female and over 55) in one swoop. There was hue and cry but no one had the courage to do much about it.
Dr X then started isolating and picking on the older female staff who worked in administration. It was subtle and sly. One by one they’d be called in to his office and told they were “under-performing" or asked “had they thought about leaving?" He’d wait a fortnight and then corner one of them when no one was around and suggest that they’d be better off taking a severance package.
But they were feisty, articulate women. They called in the union, mediators from human resources (a waste of time) and there was even a local newspaper story written about the “Head rolling heads".
Just before Christmas he produced a survey (that was new!) from our clients (later proved false) that one of the major drawbacks to our productivity was that our reception staff took too long to answer the telephones. No one mentioned that they were now also the defacto catering staff. So he sacked the receptionists and hired casuals.
To cut a long story short, Dr X got his way and in the end, he went on to sack one third of the agency (including me).
I never felt any personal malice towards Dr X. He was older than me and prided himself on his physique (he lifted weights). His CV was outstanding. He was a brilliant financial analyst and researcher who had first started publishing academic papers in his early 20s. In another life, he could have been a mentor.
Yet there was something about Dr X’s CV that seemed odd. It was bloodless. It made no mention of human contact at all; of leading staff; of being a member of a team. There was no mention of negotiation or arbitration skills. He had listed no hobbies or community memberships, nothing which suggested that there was a life going on outside of the agency. His address was a post office box.
Dr X had found his niche in organisational life. While he craved status, power and control, he could not make the staff respect him. Younger staff left in droves. He wielded power with cunning and precision, excising all those who stood in his way, until he left a rump of staff who were so compliant they offered no resistance.
Why don’t people in organisations stand up to workplace maniacs? The communications theorist Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann, who had lived through the Nazis in Europe, understood why. Her “Spiral of Silence" theory states that most people have a fear of isolation and they therefore try to follow the majority opinion. The more dominant the fear of persecution, the more each person “colludes" in silence forming a majority of silent witnesses.
The criminal actions of the workplace terrorist creates ethical and moral problems for the staff. They are thrown back on to their mettle and are forced to consider what actions, if any, they will take to stop the terror.
Apropos, those who didn’t speak up, now know a little of the fear of Muslim women in Australia - the fear of being both conspicuous yet silent.
Who hasn’t had elaborate and possibly blood-thirsty revenge fantasies about their boss? But most remain fantasies. Yet Dr X was an organisational psychopath and in a 25-year career history, he’s the first and only one I’ve met but I suggest readers may have met more.
I propose that we’re creating more of these monsters, yet I cannot prove it. It’s a hunch that the current “cult of the individual" has created the stage on which he and others breed, like bacteria in the denuded rain forests of the Amazon.
Dr X even had clones from the endangered middle management species, who, like creatures out of a 1950s science fiction movie, started to act and speak like him. They exhorted us to be team players.
“There’s no ‘I’ in team", the clones would yell to which I’d reply “but there’s two ‘i’s in ‘salary differential’." No wonder I never made it in advertising.
The Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Harvard University, Chris Argyris, says that every organisation is replete with “undiscussables” - the messy stuff that people don’t want to talk about such as bullying, mental illness, sexual harassment and drug addiction.
Worse still, the undiscussability is in itself undiscussable, which creates a group mentality that ensures no one will rock the boat. Usually it takes external events such as whistle blowers, corporate collapses or litigation to bring these dirty little secrets out in to the open.
Should we not admit to a strange, perverse fascination in the Dr X’s of the world in much the same way that Shakespeare characterised Richard the Third? A character who was without any redeeming qualities and who left a trail of destruction in his wake.
It is difficult not to shake the feeling that the characteristics that comprise the organisational psychopath are not, in some form, prized in corporate boardrooms because they brook no resistance to change. Like a hound after a hare, the psychopath is single minded in his or her pursuit.
Admittedly the organisational psychopath is in the minority. Yet they are living personifications of the worst aspects of organisational life: unbridled power, toadyism, guile and malice aforethought. They are successful tyrants.
When the pursuit of power becomes the bottom line, ethics seem pale things - or are they?
The social theorist Richard Sennett said in The Corrosion of Character that “Character is expressed by loyalty and mutual commitment or through the pursuit of long-term goals, or by the practice of delayed gratification for the sake of a future end ... Character concerns the personal traits which we value in ourselves and for which we seek to be valued by others.”
The workplace psychopath can never share in the respect of others or naturally give esteem. It may seem old fashioned but there is still dignity in labour, in putting in a hard day’s work. For whatever reason, for whatever cause, the workplace terrorist has cut himself off from one simple aspect of work - the fraternity and collegiality of working together.
By Malcolm King - posted Tuesday, 26 June 2007. Malcolm King is director of Republic Media, an educational and public advocacy business. He was a senior media adviser to the ALP and Australian Democrats and was the writing programs leader at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
Workplace bullies are not an isolated phenomenon. When John Howard’s WorkChoices legislation was introduced into parliament in 2005, the Prime Minister suggested there was one in every office.
“If you’re living in a small business environment, you’ve got, say, five or eight people in an office or a workshop, and one of them is a pain in the neck and is making life difficult for everybody else, it’s workers in many cases more than the boss that would like to see the back of him,” Prime Minister Howard said.
This article goes further than the “pain in the neck" definition of the workplace bully. It examines the bully as psychopath with their extraordinary ability to adapt to change. It is an irony that the complex psychological profiles of these individuals share many of the traits of the corporate “go-getters“ who the media glorifies.
There have been many typologies of the workplace psychopath but most include these features:
* authoritative, aggressive and dominating;
* fearless and shameless;
* devoid of empathy or remorse;
* manipulative and deceptive;
* impulsive, chaotic or stimulus seeking; and
* a master of imitation and mimicry.
One key criterion that needs to be included in any typology is that they lack self knowledge. In short, and to paraphrase the Bible, “they know not what they do". This doesn’t mean that they are ignorant. Far from it. Their actions are often highly adaptive, self serving and intelligent. For them, the means justify the ends and those means include isolation, humiliation and psychological torture of their staff.
I am not suggesting that these work place "aliens" are a new species. I am suggesting that they are coming in to their own as our public and private institutions, both great and small, are buffeted by the new IR legislation.
The rise of casual or temporary work, the declining power of unions and a more deregulated workforce have helped create an environment where these individuals are less constrained by the demonstrated ethical behaviour of their more senior peers.
Many years ago I worked in an advertising agency that had appointed an accountant (Dr X) as the new managing director. In his previous job he had five staff and 10 clients. Now, working with us, he had 120 staff and 30 major clients. Still though, as any one who has worked in advertising knows, expect the unexpected. It’s a robust and competitive environment.
Dr X seemed like a nice bloke and his ideas on revamping the agency, while frowned upon by some of the creatives and the catering staff, made sense. Marketing needed a major boost and some of the staff thought (wrongly) that working in an advertising agency was one long lunch and putting in four-day weeks. Alas, no.
Dr X took six months before he made his first move. He terminated all of the catering staff (mainly female and over 55) in one swoop. There was hue and cry but no one had the courage to do much about it.
Dr X then started isolating and picking on the older female staff who worked in administration. It was subtle and sly. One by one they’d be called in to his office and told they were “under-performing" or asked “had they thought about leaving?" He’d wait a fortnight and then corner one of them when no one was around and suggest that they’d be better off taking a severance package.
But they were feisty, articulate women. They called in the union, mediators from human resources (a waste of time) and there was even a local newspaper story written about the “Head rolling heads".
Just before Christmas he produced a survey (that was new!) from our clients (later proved false) that one of the major drawbacks to our productivity was that our reception staff took too long to answer the telephones. No one mentioned that they were now also the defacto catering staff. So he sacked the receptionists and hired casuals.
To cut a long story short, Dr X got his way and in the end, he went on to sack one third of the agency (including me).
I never felt any personal malice towards Dr X. He was older than me and prided himself on his physique (he lifted weights). His CV was outstanding. He was a brilliant financial analyst and researcher who had first started publishing academic papers in his early 20s. In another life, he could have been a mentor.
Yet there was something about Dr X’s CV that seemed odd. It was bloodless. It made no mention of human contact at all; of leading staff; of being a member of a team. There was no mention of negotiation or arbitration skills. He had listed no hobbies or community memberships, nothing which suggested that there was a life going on outside of the agency. His address was a post office box.
Dr X had found his niche in organisational life. While he craved status, power and control, he could not make the staff respect him. Younger staff left in droves. He wielded power with cunning and precision, excising all those who stood in his way, until he left a rump of staff who were so compliant they offered no resistance.
Why don’t people in organisations stand up to workplace maniacs? The communications theorist Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann, who had lived through the Nazis in Europe, understood why. Her “Spiral of Silence" theory states that most people have a fear of isolation and they therefore try to follow the majority opinion. The more dominant the fear of persecution, the more each person “colludes" in silence forming a majority of silent witnesses.
The criminal actions of the workplace terrorist creates ethical and moral problems for the staff. They are thrown back on to their mettle and are forced to consider what actions, if any, they will take to stop the terror.
Apropos, those who didn’t speak up, now know a little of the fear of Muslim women in Australia - the fear of being both conspicuous yet silent.
Who hasn’t had elaborate and possibly blood-thirsty revenge fantasies about their boss? But most remain fantasies. Yet Dr X was an organisational psychopath and in a 25-year career history, he’s the first and only one I’ve met but I suggest readers may have met more.
I propose that we’re creating more of these monsters, yet I cannot prove it. It’s a hunch that the current “cult of the individual" has created the stage on which he and others breed, like bacteria in the denuded rain forests of the Amazon.
Dr X even had clones from the endangered middle management species, who, like creatures out of a 1950s science fiction movie, started to act and speak like him. They exhorted us to be team players.
“There’s no ‘I’ in team", the clones would yell to which I’d reply “but there’s two ‘i’s in ‘salary differential’." No wonder I never made it in advertising.
The Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Harvard University, Chris Argyris, says that every organisation is replete with “undiscussables” - the messy stuff that people don’t want to talk about such as bullying, mental illness, sexual harassment and drug addiction.
Worse still, the undiscussability is in itself undiscussable, which creates a group mentality that ensures no one will rock the boat. Usually it takes external events such as whistle blowers, corporate collapses or litigation to bring these dirty little secrets out in to the open.
Should we not admit to a strange, perverse fascination in the Dr X’s of the world in much the same way that Shakespeare characterised Richard the Third? A character who was without any redeeming qualities and who left a trail of destruction in his wake.
It is difficult not to shake the feeling that the characteristics that comprise the organisational psychopath are not, in some form, prized in corporate boardrooms because they brook no resistance to change. Like a hound after a hare, the psychopath is single minded in his or her pursuit.
Admittedly the organisational psychopath is in the minority. Yet they are living personifications of the worst aspects of organisational life: unbridled power, toadyism, guile and malice aforethought. They are successful tyrants.
When the pursuit of power becomes the bottom line, ethics seem pale things - or are they?
The social theorist Richard Sennett said in The Corrosion of Character that “Character is expressed by loyalty and mutual commitment or through the pursuit of long-term goals, or by the practice of delayed gratification for the sake of a future end ... Character concerns the personal traits which we value in ourselves and for which we seek to be valued by others.”
The workplace psychopath can never share in the respect of others or naturally give esteem. It may seem old fashioned but there is still dignity in labour, in putting in a hard day’s work. For whatever reason, for whatever cause, the workplace terrorist has cut himself off from one simple aspect of work - the fraternity and collegiality of working together.
By Malcolm King - posted Tuesday, 26 June 2007. Malcolm King is director of Republic Media, an educational and public advocacy business. He was a senior media adviser to the ALP and Australian Democrats and was the writing programs leader at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
London Met academics request your support
To: London Metropolitan University Governors
Dear Governor,
We, the undersigned, wish to protest at the refusal of London Met management to consult UCU, the recognised trade union, over any issue but most particularly over threatened redundancies. We urge you to insist that the Vice Chancellor acknowledges that UCU is the recognised union representing academic staff at London Met, and that he enters into meaningful discussions with UCU officers as a matter of urgency on threatened redundancies and other outstanding issues.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
--------------------------
It is imperative that we help our colleagues by signing the online petition. London Met was recently award the 'Divestors of People' standard, which indicates that there are a plethora of valid staff concerns that need to be addressed. Please show your support by signing the online petition.
Dear Governor,
We, the undersigned, wish to protest at the refusal of London Met management to consult UCU, the recognised trade union, over any issue but most particularly over threatened redundancies. We urge you to insist that the Vice Chancellor acknowledges that UCU is the recognised union representing academic staff at London Met, and that he enters into meaningful discussions with UCU officers as a matter of urgency on threatened redundancies and other outstanding issues.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
--------------------------
It is imperative that we help our colleagues by signing the online petition. London Met was recently award the 'Divestors of People' standard, which indicates that there are a plethora of valid staff concerns that need to be addressed. Please show your support by signing the online petition.
June 25, 2007
Crown Prosecution Service Squashes Witness Intimidation Case Against Kingston University
The Criminal Witness Intimidation case against Donald Beaton, University Secretary, and Peter Scott, Vice-Chancellor of Kingston University has been squashed by the Crown Prosecution Service, after taking over the case from the alleged victims, who had originally launched a private prosecution before the Court in April 2007.
On June 22 in a hearing before the Richmond Magistrates' Court, charges were formally dropped by the CPS against the defendants on the grounds that Witness Intimidation, when it takes place against witnesses in an Employment Tribunal is, in effect, perfectly legal. According to the CPS, Employment Tribunal's do not constitute "relevant proceedings" under the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001, and therefore, there is insufficient evidence of a crime having been committed.
According to the alleged victims and their solicitor, who is also an alleged victim, Mr Beaton wrote a series of at least five threatening and intimidating letters between January and March of 2007 in response to having been informed that one of the victims had recorded her husband's internal grievance proceeding held before a panel of Board of Governors, and that this recording revealed that the panel had allegedly engaged in improper and unfair discussions with the Vice-Chancellor during a break in the proceedings, thereby suggesting that the process was not being carried out fairly and impartially.
According to the alleged victims, additional evidence has since emerged that suggests that the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Peter Scott was aware of and/or ordered Mr Beaton to write the allegedly threatening and intimidating letters in order to avoid embarassment. According to the alleged victims, Mr Beaton ordered them to turn over all existing copies of the recordings and transcripts thereof, not merely a single copy, thereby raising the question as to why this was done. Was it because the University wanted to suppress this evidence from coming to light during an ongoing Employment Tribunal proceeding?
Why is it that the CPS decided to squash this criminal case rather than allowing it to go before a Court for a full hearing on its merits as a private prosecution by the alleged victims? After all, a panel of three Magistrates apparently felt that there was enough evidence to issue an indictment of Mr Beaton on 20 April 2007, didn't they?
If this decision by the CPS is allowed to stand, will it become, in effect, perfectly legal to intimidate witnesses in Employment Tribunal proceedings? Could that have REALLY been the intention of Parliament when it passed the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001? And did the CPS then hold the view that Witness Intimidation, when it occurs in an Employment Tribunal, is and should be considered to be, in effect, perfectly legal?
For further details on this unusual groundbreaking case, visit the website:
www.sirpeterscott.com
On June 22 in a hearing before the Richmond Magistrates' Court, charges were formally dropped by the CPS against the defendants on the grounds that Witness Intimidation, when it takes place against witnesses in an Employment Tribunal is, in effect, perfectly legal. According to the CPS, Employment Tribunal's do not constitute "relevant proceedings" under the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001, and therefore, there is insufficient evidence of a crime having been committed.
According to the alleged victims and their solicitor, who is also an alleged victim, Mr Beaton wrote a series of at least five threatening and intimidating letters between January and March of 2007 in response to having been informed that one of the victims had recorded her husband's internal grievance proceeding held before a panel of Board of Governors, and that this recording revealed that the panel had allegedly engaged in improper and unfair discussions with the Vice-Chancellor during a break in the proceedings, thereby suggesting that the process was not being carried out fairly and impartially.
According to the alleged victims, additional evidence has since emerged that suggests that the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Peter Scott was aware of and/or ordered Mr Beaton to write the allegedly threatening and intimidating letters in order to avoid embarassment. According to the alleged victims, Mr Beaton ordered them to turn over all existing copies of the recordings and transcripts thereof, not merely a single copy, thereby raising the question as to why this was done. Was it because the University wanted to suppress this evidence from coming to light during an ongoing Employment Tribunal proceeding?
Why is it that the CPS decided to squash this criminal case rather than allowing it to go before a Court for a full hearing on its merits as a private prosecution by the alleged victims? After all, a panel of three Magistrates apparently felt that there was enough evidence to issue an indictment of Mr Beaton on 20 April 2007, didn't they?
If this decision by the CPS is allowed to stand, will it become, in effect, perfectly legal to intimidate witnesses in Employment Tribunal proceedings? Could that have REALLY been the intention of Parliament when it passed the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001? And did the CPS then hold the view that Witness Intimidation, when it occurs in an Employment Tribunal, is and should be considered to be, in effect, perfectly legal?
For further details on this unusual groundbreaking case, visit the website:
www.sirpeterscott.com
June 22, 2007
London Met awarded the 'Divestors of People' standard
Dear Sir/Madam,
We are writing to inform you that your institution has been awarded the 'Divestors of People' standard, for you meet at least 50% of the required criteria.
We are writing to inform you that your institution has been awarded the 'Divestors of People' standard, for you meet at least 50% of the required criteria.
For more details, please check:
http://bulliedacademics.blogspot.com
and
http://bulliedacademics.250free.com/divestors_of_people.html
Yours sincerely,
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Louise Michel and Peter Kropotkin
June 21, 2007
London Met corporate bullying
Anonymous said:
London Met staff have been subjected to corporate bullying since the day it was formed by a (pointless) merger between London Guildhall and North London. One example of controlling just for the sake of it, is that we are not allowed to take more than 3 weeks contiguous leave during the summer period. Currently, we are almost certainly facing compulsory redundancies, but management have decided not to recognise UCU, so they will be able to get rid of anyone they like (or rather, don't like) without consultation.
The Wikipedia entry for London Met merits a visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Metropolitan_University
You will see that there is a lot of information there about "Industrial Relations"; this was added fairly recently, and is factual and properly referenced. All this text was deleted by someone whose IP address can be traced to London Met in the Holloway Road; then it was restored, then deleted, restored and so on (click on the "history" button). It seems that someone does not want the truth published.
-------------------------
Just a reminder that we need two nominations from the same Higher Education institution to award them the standard DIVESTORS OF PEOPLE...
London Met staff have been subjected to corporate bullying since the day it was formed by a (pointless) merger between London Guildhall and North London. One example of controlling just for the sake of it, is that we are not allowed to take more than 3 weeks contiguous leave during the summer period. Currently, we are almost certainly facing compulsory redundancies, but management have decided not to recognise UCU, so they will be able to get rid of anyone they like (or rather, don't like) without consultation.
The Wikipedia entry for London Met merits a visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Metropolitan_University
You will see that there is a lot of information there about "Industrial Relations"; this was added fairly recently, and is factual and properly referenced. All this text was deleted by someone whose IP address can be traced to London Met in the Holloway Road; then it was restored, then deleted, restored and so on (click on the "history" button). It seems that someone does not want the truth published.
-------------------------
Just a reminder that we need two nominations from the same Higher Education institution to award them the standard DIVESTORS OF PEOPLE...
June 20, 2007
Ask Boris
Boris Johnston is the opposition (Conservatives) spokesman on Higher Education. Some may argue that it is futile to make aware and remind Boris of the real costs of workplace bullying in Higher Education. We think it is our duty to remind all in public positions including politicians of all parties, about the impact of workplace bullying.
In particular, since the Conservatives are to articulate their policies on a number of fronts, it may be opportune that we ask them about their policies on workplace bullying. In the case of Boris, we need to – politely and with facts – ask him to comment on his stance on workplace bullying in Higher Education. It is imperative that we are precise, polite and factual. Boris needs to become aware and not alienated.
Boris runs an online forum on Higher Education, with a section titled ‘Ask Boris’. You will need to sign in and get a password to post a question. We suggest that you ask him – online - about his stance on workplace bullying in Higher Education. Alternatively, you may wish to email Boris with your questions on workplace bullying in Higher Education, or write to him at: Boris Johnson MP, Constituency Office, 8 Gorwell, Watlington, OX49 5QE
Here are some pointers that you may wish to quote or refer to in your communication with Boris:
In particular, since the Conservatives are to articulate their policies on a number of fronts, it may be opportune that we ask them about their policies on workplace bullying. In the case of Boris, we need to – politely and with facts – ask him to comment on his stance on workplace bullying in Higher Education. It is imperative that we are precise, polite and factual. Boris needs to become aware and not alienated.
Boris runs an online forum on Higher Education, with a section titled ‘Ask Boris’. You will need to sign in and get a password to post a question. We suggest that you ask him – online - about his stance on workplace bullying in Higher Education. Alternatively, you may wish to email Boris with your questions on workplace bullying in Higher Education, or write to him at: Boris Johnson MP, Constituency Office, 8 Gorwell, Watlington, OX49 5QE
Here are some pointers that you may wish to quote or refer to in your communication with Boris:
- ...Workplace bullying contributes to a total loss of 18 million working days every year in the UK. This equates to a cost of around £2 billion each year to UK industry...
- ...Some of the costs of behaviours associated with workplace bullying have been identified. In the United Kingdom, Hoel, Sparks and Cooper (2001) estimated that workplace bullying absenteeism contributed an extra 18 million lost working days annually. By contrast, Rayner, Hoel and Cooper (2002) argues that costs are rarely estimated reliably but rather are lost in the daily activities of those who are required to deal with the problem. As such, the true costs remain unaccounted for… there is a lack of research quantifying the impact workplace mobbing has on organisations. Such a model would need to account for the hidden costs such as client and industry perceptions, investor confidence, and loss of knowledge capital. Generally, only the obvious organisational impacts are considered such as absenteeism, turnover and productivity…
- ...The company where mobbing occurs may suffer damage not only to its image but also to its finances. An evaluation by the International Labour Office has found that psychological harassment costs about EUR 150,000 a year in a company with 1,000 employees. Moreover, some researchers have found that a mobbing victim has a reduced working performance (by 60%) and an increased cost for the company (by 180%)...
- ...A recent ACAS study highlighted how claimants dismissed as “futile” internal grievance procedures aimed at resolving disputes within organisations. Complaints were made about how the submission of a grievance by an employee was often triggered by disciplinary action by employers and how they could work against achieving a satisfactory resolution; it was also thought to be difficult to find colleagues to represent them, that there were often unnecessary delays and the involvement of unsuitable managers who, in a number of cases, were felt to have been complicit or active in the original discrimination experience...
- ...“I’ve just heard from over 800 people in an online survey and additional 400+ people in emails all telling me about their bullying experiences in higher education. These are academics and academic-related staff who’re facing regular abuse within their workplace…” Dr Petra Boynton research.
- ...There are five stages. First is ostracism, to cut the victim off from influence and support. Second is administrative harassment, often in petty ways. Then comes the incident, an action by the victim that can trigger formal retribution. The fourth stage covers the various appeal procedures and the final stage is elimination...
- ...At a time when academia needs to serve the knowledge economy in an innovative manner, the inaction, unwillingness to act, and fear to act against bullying from the boss within the organization is a sad commentary on the academy. The prevalence of bullying within academia is of concern. As noted by Czernis (2005), “respondents to The Times Higher survey had worked at their jobs an average of seven years and reported bullying as lasting typically from two to five years, suggesting academic staff who completed the survey spent a large proportion of their working lives being bullied”. This is a tragedy. The human loss in potential and the organizational loss in possibilities are and should be intolerable...
- ...Over two thirds (68%) of staff surveyed at Leeds Metropolitan University (LMU) have suffered stress because of bullying from their managers. A similar number (67%) said they had become angry as a result of how they were treated and over three fifths had lost sleep (62%) or become anxious (61%)...
- ...Leaked survey at Sheffield Hallam reveals 'disturbing' fears of victimisation, high stress and sub-par performance in many areas of work that require 'urgent action'. Phil Baty reports Almost 100 members of staff at Sheffield Hallam University have reported being bullied "always, often or sometimes" in an internal survey leaked to The Times Higher...
- ...In some cases when academics sue for wrongful dismissal, they reach a settlement with the university that includes a payment to them only upon acceptance of a silencing clause, namely a settlement condition that restricts future public comment about the case. Silencing clauses are potent means for cover-up...
June 19, 2007
Math Profs Get Mobbed
From:
June 18, 2007
Leeds Met staff stressed and losing sleep over management bullying - UK
Over two thirds (68%) of staff surveyed at Leeds Metropolitan University (LMU) have suffered stress because of bullying from their managers. A similar number (67%) said they had become angry as a result of how they were treated and over three fifths had lost sleep (62%) or become anxious (61%).
The survey of UCU members at LMU paints a worrying picture of a bullying culture at the university. The survey was sparked by fears from the local union branch that staff members' health was suffering because of a bullying culture. The union was forced to survey its members after the university's human resources (HR) department refused to.
The union says that an early indication of the bullying culture was a unilateral ban on staff leave during graduation week and the two week staff development 'festival', followed by a thinly veiled threat to sack those who did not participate. The festival coincides with the end of the summer holidays, a time when schools are still on holiday, and many parents wish to be with their families.
The survey confirmed the union's concerns that, despite protestations from HR, leave during the two periods was not being granted. Ninety per cent of those surveyed said they had been refused leave during these periods.
UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'The behaviour of the management at Leeds Metropolitan University is clearly having a demoralising effect on the staff. A decent work - life balance is crucial to staff being able to do their jobs properly. Even more worrying are the revelations in the survey about the impact the management's approach is having on staff's health.'
UCU regional official, Adrian Jones, said: 'The vice-chancellor claims the university aims to enhance well-being by promoting an ethical, healthy environment, ethos and community. The reality, revealed by the preliminary results of this survey, is very different. Besides the high levels of stress and anxiety, the survey reveals a climate of fear with 96% of those surveyed reporting that they felt inhibited about criticising polices of Leeds Met.'
From: http://www.ucu.org.uk
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Is it time for another DIVESTORS OF PEOPLE award? Do we have any nominations coming from Leeds Metropolitan University? Do we know what the governors are doing about the situation?
The survey of UCU members at LMU paints a worrying picture of a bullying culture at the university. The survey was sparked by fears from the local union branch that staff members' health was suffering because of a bullying culture. The union was forced to survey its members after the university's human resources (HR) department refused to.
The union says that an early indication of the bullying culture was a unilateral ban on staff leave during graduation week and the two week staff development 'festival', followed by a thinly veiled threat to sack those who did not participate. The festival coincides with the end of the summer holidays, a time when schools are still on holiday, and many parents wish to be with their families.
The survey confirmed the union's concerns that, despite protestations from HR, leave during the two periods was not being granted. Ninety per cent of those surveyed said they had been refused leave during these periods.
UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'The behaviour of the management at Leeds Metropolitan University is clearly having a demoralising effect on the staff. A decent work - life balance is crucial to staff being able to do their jobs properly. Even more worrying are the revelations in the survey about the impact the management's approach is having on staff's health.'
UCU regional official, Adrian Jones, said: 'The vice-chancellor claims the university aims to enhance well-being by promoting an ethical, healthy environment, ethos and community. The reality, revealed by the preliminary results of this survey, is very different. Besides the high levels of stress and anxiety, the survey reveals a climate of fear with 96% of those surveyed reporting that they felt inhibited about criticising polices of Leeds Met.'
From: http://www.ucu.org.uk
---------------------------------------
Is it time for another DIVESTORS OF PEOPLE award? Do we have any nominations coming from Leeds Metropolitan University? Do we know what the governors are doing about the situation?
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The extent of corporate bullying at London Met is matched only by the incompetence of its senior management. Particularly since the University lost the high profile dispute over contracts following the merger there has followed a steady process of retrenchment by the management. Academic staff have gradually been removed from key committees which have been taken over by bureaucrats acting at the behest of their senior managers. Since the merger new modular course structures, forms of student support, systems of quality assurance have all been imposed with minimal consultation with the teaching staff who have to deliver them. This would not be so bad if what has been imposed were halfway effective. But while the new structures and processes are widely recognised (including by Heads of Department) to be at best half-baked and at worst severely destructive of good practice, the senior management of the institution remains completely out of touch with the realities of higher educational delivery, protected by the middle layer of mediocrities they have put in place to do their bidding. If the University Management could get themselves down to 50% of the criteria for the Hall of Shame, this would be a major step forward. Please consider this a formal nomination.